Wheat straw never looked this good before! Using enzyme technology from the enzyme champions in Denmark, Novozymes and Danisco, Inbicon, a subsidiary of DONG Energy, is producing bioethanol from wheat straw. This biofuel will be mixed with gasoline by Statoil, which will also set up a fueling station to fill up the cars used to transport the attendees of COP15.
“We’re sponsoring cellulosic bioethanol for 10 Volvo cars that will run on 85% bioethanol and 15% gasoline,” says Kirsten Birkegaard Stær, Senior Specialist for Region Europe in Novozymes. “This sponsorship is a partnership between Danisco, Novozymes, Inbicon, and Statoil in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark – and underscores Denmark’s commitment to put sustainability high on the agenda and reduce the carbon footprint of transportation.”
The Ministry has picked a variety of car manufacturers as official sponsors of limousines and other vehicles for COP15. The vehicles represent a broad range of bets on how sponsors address climate change and include new technologies and propellants, such as hybrid, hydrogen combustion,
fuel cells, biogas, and cellulosic bioethanol.
Novozymes is a market leader in bioinnovation and is gearing up to launch commercial enzymes for the production of cellulosic bioethanol in early 2010.
“COP15 gives us an excellent opportunity to showcase our technology and show the world that bioinnovation is a viable path to a sustainable tomorrow,” says Poul Ruben Andersen, Marketing Director for Biofuel at Novozymes. “Cellulosic bioethanol is going to change the way we drive our cars in the future, and we start telling this story here, at COP15, a conference that is working on making our future sustainable.”
The road ahead
The goal of cellulosic bioethanol is to extend the amount of biofuel that can be produced sustainably by using biomass consisting of the residual parts of current crops, such as stems, leaves, and husks left behind once the crop has been extracted.